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Scientific applications of music


freeztar

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This thread is to discuss scientific applications of music.

Please post articles, or some form of reference, when you reply.

 

I'm familiar with music psychology as a scientific application of music:

Music psychology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

But surely, there is more to it than psychology, or does it just turn into physics after psychology is denied?

 

Discuss!

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Music therapy is an important application of music. It is used to help people, particularly kids, with Autistic Spectrum Disorder to develop motor and social skills, verbal and non-verbal communication skills and enhance self esteem. The therapy is also used in the treatment of stress, mental illness, such as schizophrenia, and also with Alzheimer's.

 

Center for the Study of Autism

The Center For Music Therapy - What Is Music Therapy?

PDF: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&blobtype=pdf&artid=1292421

PDF: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&blobtype=pdf&artid=1293858

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Great site. It seems that music is a very useful tool to help people learn.

The OAL Connection - Music and Language Learning

 

Awesome link! :turtle:

 

Song lyrics often work this way because students will pick up the chorus much sooner than the verses of a song. The chorus is a hook to the plus-one feature of many parts of the verses. Students learn the chorus, then use it to learn the rest of the lyrics.

 

Very interesting... [the details in the article are much more enlightening]

 

In conclusion, there is strong evidence supporting the use of music in the ESL classroom. Language and music are tied together in brain processing by pitch, rhythm and by symmetrical phrasing. Music can help familiarize students with connections and provides a fun way to acquire English.

 

Where can I sign up? :)

 

This single link is a spawn for so many discussions that I have to stop here.

:eek_big:

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  • 3 weeks later...

This is unreal. So cool it probably deserves its own thread, but anyways...

The vOICe Learning Edition translates arbitrary video images from a regular PC camera into sounds. This means that you can see with your ears, whenever you want to. Now step beyond your computer screen and screen reader and try this camera-based "scene reader". With a notebook PC you can even go mobile. How well you can learn to see with your ears is something that only you can find out, but now you can indeed find out and learn through this Learning Edition software, for free! It is hoped that seeing with sound will not only find many practical uses, but that extensive usage may also lead to visual experiences that truly have the distinctive subjective "feel" of vision. This, however, remains to be established through the reports of blind users. Maybe you will be among the pioneers?

http://www.seeingwithsound.com/winvoice.htm

 

You have to check out some of the mp3 demos like the ones on this page:

http://www.seeingwithsound.com/ourcar.htm

 

Could you imagine walking around with your eyes closed and relating to the world through those sounds? :D

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This is unreal. So cool it probably deserves its own thread, but anyways...

 

http://www.seeingwithsound.com/winvoice.htm

 

You have to check out some of the mp3 demos like the ones on this page:

http://www.seeingwithsound.com/ourcar.htm

 

Could you imagine walking around with your eyes closed and relating to the world through those sounds? :scratchchin:

 

 

So that's what a wheel sounds like...:hyper: The sounds make me think the objects are aliens trying to communicate!

 

Very interesting site freeztar! You'll have to download the software and try walking around with your eyes closed one day to really understand what it would be like to see with your ears. I wonder how long it would take a person to remember what each of the sounds represents.

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So that's what a wheel sounds like...:scratchchin: The sounds make me think the objects are aliens trying to communicate!

 

Very interesting site freeztar! You'll have to download the software and try walking around with your eyes closed one day to really understand what it would be like to see with your ears. I wonder how long it would take a person to remember what each of the sounds represents.

 

I suppose it would be fairly easy to use and get to know at home, but I couldn't even imagine walking around in a forest with that! :hyper: ...but who knows eh...

I got the alien impression too btw.

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  • 1 month later...
Scientists convert the sequence of proteins into music

Medical Science News

Published: Sunday, 20-May-2007

 

 

UCLA molecular biologists have turned protein sequences into original compositions of classical music.

 

"We converted the sequence of proteins into music and can get an auditory signal for every protein,"

. . .

. . .

"A 20-note scale is too large a range," Takahashi said. "You need a reduced scale, so we paired similar amino acids together and used chords and chord variations for each amino acid. We used each component of the music to indicate a specific characteristic of the protein. We are faithful in the conversion from the sequence to the music. The rhythm is dictated by the protein sequence."

. . .

On the biologists' site (http://www.mimg.ucla.edu/faculty/miller_jh/gene2music/examples.html), you can listen to the compositions and even submit your own genetic sequence and have it translated to music. The browser allows anyone to send in a sequence coding for a protein, which will then be converted into music and returned as a MIDI audio file. The research is published in Genome Biology, a major journal in the field of genomics.

 

"I was thinking of doing a project like this for years," Miller said, "but realized I needed a person who has the unique characteristics of being both a molecular geneticist and a serious classical musician. When I met Rie, I realized this is the person I've been looking for."

 

Takahashi was a UCLA undergraduate in microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics who did the research as an honors thesis.

 

"Many scientists like classical music," she noted. "Before I took a course from Dr. Miller, those two worlds were separate in my mind. To bridge the two is very rewarding. My piano teacher doesn't have a science background, but when I use music to explain proteins to him, it goes from gibberish to something that really interests him."

 

Takahashi and Miller are not the first scientists to attempt to convert protein sequences into music, but they believe their music is more melodic and less "jumpy" than previous attempts. Initially, Takahashi converted the amino acids and played the resulting music on the piano. Now they are piloting a computer program, written by colleague Frank Pettit, that uses their translation rules to convert the protein sequences to music. They hope this will speed up the translation of large segments of genomes.

Scientists convert the sequence of proteins into music

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